Summer Farm Still Life

I have been wanting to take some photos lately of some of the various scenes around the farm.....most of them are using various vintage pieces that interest me and set them with plants or flowers around the yard.

Some of them are falling apart......which is what happens when they are old pieces anyway and get abused by the elements for years......hope you enjoy a walk back in time.

I have a bucket full of these.....brass number tags that you would put on your cows to keep track of them for records.

One of my favorite things to do at my Grandma Kullmer's house was to feed the calves when they were little.....there would have been a big nipple coming out the front of this bucket, where the hole is and you would have the milk supplement all mixed in the bucket and hang it on the gate and try and make sure that your calf got his food and not the bully in the pen.....there was always that one that thought he should get ALL the food.

These metal wheels were before my time.....although I think we had a couple old implements when I was little that still had their metal wheels.  I have always loved them and saved everyone of them.

Metal wheels and barn doors.....can't have too many of those.  A couple years ago.....I went to a nearby ditch and the Silver Fox dug up some grass.   The kind that get huge in the fall and have these beautiful silver plumes on them.  One clump of that grass went here......framing a milk can and a big circle gear, I liked the look of.

We have a shed that lost it roof about 18 months ago......we started taking down the west wall of it last week.  This has been here on the NW corner of this building long before I was ever around.  I really think it was used to tie up horses......but who knows.  This was partly why I wanted to take these pictures.  This will be going away.....I am hoping to harvest some of the wood to line the cabin.

Chippy, peely, weathered and worn.....

I pretty much saved all the metal gates and have them several places.....the corner post.

These panel are the sides of a wooden wagon that dad used for years....it still has some paint left on it and we used it to cover up our propane tank in the back yard.  The yellow lilies are from my Grandma Kullmer.

Several years ago we had a direct lightning strike on the house.....that then hit the ground and went up two trees in our back yard.....a red maple and an English walnut.....they are deeply scarred from it.

The red maple puts out these huge pieces of what I would call fungus every year.

These things are humongous and funky.....they drop off going into winter and grow again in the spring.

More benches, pots, branches, barbed wire, doors and a chicken feeder for good measure.

Then we have a collection of other people's landscaping discards.....this place has odds and ends from family ripping out old stuff and it's found a new home here.

How about an old mower.....how would you like to mow the yard with that???  Not so much.  Kraft advertising sign for chicken feed with another chicken water and chicken crossing sign from my mother-in-law.....Florence Lesh......who had a chicken collection of sorts.

Flowering in the garden right now is my lavender which I moved from the kitchen garden and a rock garden type plant.  My Grandma Kullmer always had a garden spot that was mine and it had pretty rocks in it and rock garden type plants.....I have several varieties of those and they were all from her.  She always had Hen and Chicks too.....love them.

Here are some lilies just starting to come out around the old tiller.....these lilies happen to travel from Quad Cities and the Carruthers house on the cul-de-sac.  The yard was full of flowers and they didn't want the upkeep of all of that and ripped most of it out.....so I brought several clumps of them home and they have been happy here ever since.

Hope you are having a great summer!  And thanks for stopping by.....

Give Me The Raspberries!

Summer is here, but my air conditioning has been off all week.  What's with that?  This has been the weirdest summer yet!  It has been beautiful, rainy and cool.  We chose not to put our pool up and I am glad we didn't.  It would not have been worth it.....all the $$ to keep the water clean.  We normally are not bothered with a lot of mosquitoes and the like, but with all the rain, they are a BIG problem.  Especially if you are trying to pick raspberries and there is no breeze.  I feel like a piece of raw meat when I enter into their domain.

 You should have seen me the last time I went out, no you really shouldn't have, hence no selfie here!!!! ........ long pants with bands around my ankles, hooded sweatshirt with the hood scrunched around my face, like a kid would do and make the hoodie be a circle around your face!  Quite a sight!  And I still came in with bites all over my hands and forehead, neck, cheeks......a hot, itchy mess!

All I can say is I must love some special to endure this kind of grief!  My dear Silver Fox only eats raspberry jam on his toast (a jam snob if you can believe that).....have you ever bought raspberry jam from the store.....it is the $$$ in the jam/jelly aisle at the store.  Bless his heart he doesn't ask for hardly anything, so really it is a small indulgence to make him happy!!!!

I started out with 4 quarts of raspberries.  

What do you think of the wooden berry boxes?  I have a stack of them at least 2' high down in the shed. I have no idea how many there are of them! They are brand new, except for the few on top that I have used each season.  I found them at my Grandma Theden's house in Jesup.  I have no idea why she had so many, although she used to have a strawberry bed back in the day. 

But they are too cute not to use!!!

And really as I was crushing them to begin the process......they were almost too nice to crush up.  These babies were huge!

Have the sugar & pectin all mixed in.....ready to fill some jars.

Wonder how many jars I will get filled today?

Yum!

I have been working on this little scrappy number.  I think Karen from IL gave this pattern to me from my Small Quilt online group in a Christmas swap we did last year.  The pattern is called Chattanooga and is by Sew Unique Creations.  My #4 daughter lives in Chattanooga....maybe she will want it????

   It was such a blast to dump out my reproduction basket of scraps and start cutting strips and squares and it just looks wonderful, no matter the color only the value matters!  I have it layered, but haven't started quilting on it yet!

The Dear Jane Challenge for this week!

TR-12

I am making slow progress on the top border of my quilt.  I have had several days of not being able to work on it, but the week has been busy and "jam has been made."  But we soldier on.....  :)  Your challenge for this week is one of the triangles on the top edge.  The link will take you to the triangle tip page and trust these are helpful to you!

Today in the Civil War was The Battle of Fort Wagner.  It is not a place we have been able to visit, but if you have watched the movie Glory....it will the make story come alive for you.

Bit 'O Green

Writer's Note:  This was suppose to be posted a week ago.....ugh....not sure what happened to it, I am sure operator error.  The amount of silly things I do or forget to do on some days is ridiculous.  

Top of the morning to ya.....trust me I have no Irish accent and don't drink beer.  But even still, I always felt like I should have some Irish ancestry, but to my knowledge I don't.  I really like Celtic music and enjoy listening to it.  I thought I would share some things of mine that are green.

Here is part of the green stash that is not batik or reproduction or homespun.  I keep most of my fabric in glass covered lawyer type book cases.  It keeps them dust free, but I can still see what I have.  I also fold my fabric in a uniform way so they stack nicely and can always be seen.

 Dear Jane block G-7 Indianapolis, I think it is the only green block in my quilt so far.

 Oh my cutting mat.....could not live without several of them.  I am working on some string piecing of selvages and this narrow roll of muslin type fabric and the other stack are stitched on used up dryer sheets.  These will make great borders or a strippy quilt at some point.

The stash 'o repro's in green, thought you might enjoy the little J & P Coats box too.  I got that from a neighbor of mine and have it full of vintage spools and threads.  It has a floral motif on the top of the lid.

We are enjoying a beautiful week here in Ioway!!!  70-80 every day.....it has been wonderful and the Silver Fox and I have been uncovering flower beds every day we have been home.  It is so nice to have his help.  I planted some new things outside my front door, so am looking forward to seeing how things are going to look as they all come up.

 Hen and Chicks......these are the tiny ones.  I love these things and have them in several varieties, sizes all over the farm.

 A green friendship star.....this is a great block to make and one I have enjoyed putting together over the years. This little beauty is a 3" block finished, so each one of the little squares is 1" finished.  This is from a charm patch quilt, so each patch is different.  You would need to cut your squares 1-7/8" and cut them once diagonally to have the correct size to piece.  You can see the quilting I did with my machine that looks like hand quilting.  I love to do that on small pieces because of all the seam allowances ....hard hand quilting if you ask me.

 Now hear is the whole quilt......  I really like charm quilts, but they are time consuming to cut out.

I kept some of the books from my Great-Grandma W.'s house.  I don't think I have read this one and I should.....I love the cover on it and from perusing the pages it has an Irish theme to the story.  Isn't it a charming cover with the pooch and the shamrocks?

What a lovely shaped pitcher in green of course.....It came from my Grandma K. and I like to put flowers in it sometimes.....sweet!

This little house was on my Grandma K's big gas cook stove and she kept her salt in it.  It is chipped up and has been lovingly used, but it reminds me of her standing in front of her stove making fried, crispy potatoes in bacon grease for me in her big cast iron pan.

Enjoy!!!!

Last Garden Tomatoes and Old Recipes

Hot Spanish Sandwiches 

Well I must say, my tomatoes were not the prettiest this year as you can see and for some reason were kind of slow coming around.....the season seemed to be short. 

I decided to make Spanish Sandwiches, a recipe I haven't made for years and one ALL my girls absolutely hate.  So why am I sharing this with you..... because the Silver Fox and I like them and I can eat them with a few modifications.  I got this recipe from a dear lady already in Glory (who I might add, died and saw the pearly gates of heaven, then came back to earth for a time and told about them)....my dear friend's mother, Juanita.

I have been cooking my bacon in the oven lately....350 for about 20 minutes....turning it part way through cooking.  And on parchment paper too....no washing the pan...even better.

Hot Spanish Sandwiches

10 slices of bread toasted

1/2 lb of bacon cooked

Slices of cheese

Put bacon & cheese between 2 slices of toast.

Pour sauce over the top.

Cook 2 T. onion in some 1 T. of oil

Add 3 cups strained tomatoes

1 green pepper chopped

2 t. of parsley

1/2 c. chopped celery

Simmer 20 min.

Can thicken with a bit of flour in butter.

Pour over your hot toasted sandwiches.

Yum!!!

Chili Sauce

 

Then still more tomatoes on another day when I checked the garden.  They are coming fast and furious now, knowing their time on this earth is short.  :)  I decided to make some chili sauce....another recipe I haven't done in awhile.  Only this time I am going to freeze it, instead of canning it.

BTW, I thought you might like to see the way I hold recipes or any other paper item that I want to stand up and look perky.  I use old flower frogs ......very cute.  The chili recipe on the left I had my daughter Sally write out for me when she was 10 and include the date and year.  You might want to do that if you have younger kids or grand kids around.  They are such dear things to pull out of your recipe box or book.

I picked all of the peppers I had left in the garden and luckily I had bought a bag on onions at the store.

I chop everything in my Cuisinart......I pretty much use the recipe as a general guideline, just so you know.

Chili Sauce

24 large ripe tomatoes

4 white onions

4 green peppers

4 t salt

1/2 t ground cloves

1/2 t all spice

1 T cinnamon

1 c sugar

1 1/2 pints vinegar

Chop everything and cook slowly for 3 hours then can.  Or if you want to freeze it like I did.  I waited for it to cool down and then bagged it in freezer bags.  I put a quart of sauce into a gal. size bag, then got the air out of the bag and laid them on a cookie sheet so they were nice and flat.  And froze them.  Then you can stand them upright in your freezer like a file folder and see what you have and pull out what you need.

I also made a small batch of the sauce the other day and just added the other ingredients to make the chili for us to eat after I let the sauce cook down a bit. 

Every time I make chili with this recipe for those who have never had it.  They pretty much go nuts over the flavor, because it is sweet and the spices make it unique and interesting. 

Enjoy!!! 

Harvest

As I took these pictures several days ago there were combines humming in the fields all around me.  I like to ride in the combine....it is a prospective like none other.  You are sitting on top of the grain as it is cut off the stalk and pulled into the machine.  Then magically the trash is thrown out the back and the grain is delivered into a holding tank.   The cabs look like airplane cockpits to me.  So many gauges and levers, then there are the warning buzzers, if the machine perceives something is not right.  It is really an overwhelming machine.  I never drove one.....too chicken...too afraid something would happen and oh, so much $$$ to fix.  The farmers around here are having the "joy" of trying to keep all the metal and debris out of their machines from the storm this summer that destroyed hundreds of grain bins and buildings around here.  I heard that many are having flat tire issues as they run over stuff and ruin their tires.

 My last few weeks have been filled with migraines....and not sleeping....taking meds to get rid of the latest round.  I think I have had 1 day out of the last 14 when I haven't had to take something.  And the MO has
changed.  I normally wake up with a migraine between 3-5 AM and hopefully have it gone by noon.  The last couple weeks, they have been visiting any time between noon and 9 PM.  I new wrinkle in the program, with no changes in my life, so go figure.  Let's just say my production level has suffered.  Enough of that, but it messes up my schedule of my postings and my life.... grrrr

 I just wanted to show the bounty of the land during this harvest season.  My mums are almost like weeds, I have them planted around an old set of wheels in my front yard with some other items.....trying to cover a well casing in my front yard.  Who has a well casing in their front yard?......let's just say NONE of my neighbors do.  There is suppose to be a clematis there too, but the mums I think have taken it over.  Who knew they wouldn't play well with others.

 My daily walk to get the mail and paper every afternoon.  I really like it better when we have corn planted here, partly because I just like the look of the corn better and then I have access to corn stalks to make a shock of that by my front door this time of year.  :)  The corn really does closes us off from the road and the world and I like that too. But the beans were beautiful this year, tall and lots of pods from top to bottom.

 The rusty chicken guarding the hen and chicks in the garden.

Several years ago we built a "civil war" type fence out of our wooden fence post collection.  Now who do you know that has a repository of wooden fence posts?.....oo oo oo, that would be us.  I have a thing for wooden fences.  I take pictures of them, admire them and then want to recreate them here in the perfect spot on Pine Ridge.  This is looking between the posts at the soybean field before it was harvested last week.